For Christmas, my family and I went to Houston and the surrounding areas.
It was nice and warm for the most part. A pleasant change from the usual Canada standard.
We were spoiled rotten with great food. Catalina’s family in Corpus Christi were superb hosts that had formerly owned a Chinese restaurant. For eight people there was a nine course meal. My family is now going to expect that with every vacation.
In Corpus we were also a one minute walk to the beach. It could probably have been closer, but an aircraft carrier was taking up all the parking. I mean that almost literally. It couldn’t possibly be true, but it sounded too cool not to say. Really, the aircraft carrier was not taking up any parking spots. But it did add a certain je ne sais quoi to the view.
The museum ship, the USS Lexington was very cool to see. You can wander over more of the ship than I would have expected. I did ask and discovered that it no longer floats; it was sailed into the mud and then allowed to settle. It will never move again. On board there were a lot of tight staircases, and good displays. I liked the scale models. The story of the Dreadnought was also good. There were lots of planes on the deck to look at. And they let you move and pretend-fire the big guns. I don’t think we covered everything in it; after awhile you get tired from too much learning.
My flight to and from Houston was fairly easy, except my razor was confiscated on the way back. I can not say the same about my family, who are now swearing they will never fly with Air Canada again. Their flight down was delayed by 140 minutes and their Bombardier plane was cramped and uncomfortable. Their return flight was at 7:30 in the morning, which meant getting up very early. I still do not know if that plane ever made it back to Canada. It certainly didn’t fly that day. I don’t even think it flew the next. Luckily my family was able to get switched over to United for the next day and had a stay at the airport hotel for their trouble.
For flying purposes I don’t know who to trust anymore. Last year, United gave me a lot of trouble for flying to and from Costa Rica. And I know that they break guitars. But Air Canada sat on a throne of lies. They claimed they were sending another plane to rescue people, but that never happened; they kept trying to repair the one they had and telling people fantasies about departure times which required continual false returns to the airport. I think it was the same plane they took down, implying it was on its last legs for awhile.